Tetrafax Spores, at least to Moss were still relatively new to her plans. Derived from a giant mushroom that she had stolen during the Galdian invasion. She did not understand much of it's origins besides the fact that it was not of this world, but what she did know was that it paralyzed and that it brought hunger unto a person that lasted for a good while, even after a person is rendered full.
Of course, Moss was not really a fan of that sort of hunger. She did not want her minions wasting food on victims of the spore attacks who were clamoring for something to fill them, she just wanted an ordinary paralyzing agent that was entirely home-grown! While they had not quite reached that level of desire just yet she felt that she was getting close to cracking it. Just one more night or two, and these spores would finally be ready.
Even then though, she still had to go through the catalog of plant life, from least to most exotic.
"Devil's Cottongrass... no change."
So far, she was on plants from other realms. For quite a few of them, there was just straight up no change whatsoever, which was the case with most plants. Others proved to be a toxic combination, such as the Sasmaratang Fruit and it's juice who's resulting mix released enough toxins to kill a ordinary man.
"Angel's Blood Flytrap... subject appears to have shrunk by a few inches. Very interesting, but not what I'm looking for."
Picking up the recorded information card, Moss put it safely away in her pocket as she continued to observe the results on the minions who "offered" (I.E. were forced) to participate as test subjects. No matter the occasion, their actions always caused new information to be dug up during investigations. As such, they were invaluable to the processes of research that this school went through.
"The Adyx Flower..."
*KRAK-BOOM!*
"Hmm... an extremely volatile interaction."
Naturally, while she was controlling the plants that were used, Moss always did it from behind a big glass door, from which she could see the other's determination get squashed by some experiment from other places. As such, when she finally moved on to plants from the Primordial Dream and saw the resulting mix cause a bright blue explosion of spores, all she could really care for was what happened on the other side of the glass rather than for her own safety.
For a bit, nothing happened except blue spores floating around the air. Within a short period however, she started noticing... changes to the subject within. She thought that the volunteer was thin... but now as time passed she swore that the minion was growing a potbelly in real time, fat emerging from nowhere and tearing through her uniform before outright causing her undergarments to blow off.
"Well... this is certainly... a unique... okay what the hell?"
*GRRRUMBLE*
"S-soo hungry..."
"Of course... ugh, is hunger just deeply coded into these spores?"
Throwing her notes to the ground, Moss just slumped back in frustration at the fact that she had achieved the exact opposite to what she was looking for. Not only had she failed to remove the hunger from her bioweapon, but now she had created some sort of hybrid spore that fattened up a person as well! Was this mushroom just perverted or something? Does it have a literal will for fattening up people?
As she mulled over her failures, her head scientist sat by her side. Instead of frustration though, Dr. Algae had a great smile on his face. After all, he saw things in a different way from the boss, and began putting pieces together in his head.
"Do you just realize what you did?" Algae asked, with a grin on his face.
"I made another failure of a weapon..."
'No you did not! You made a weapon designed to perfectly incapacitate an opponent in an entirely controllable way! It's going to need quite a few modifications to be perfect, but-"
"It just fattens someone up and makes them starving!" Moss yelled back, knocking him on his side with a anger-fuelled punch. "How the hell does that incapacitate someone?"
"Think about it." Wiping a small bit of blood off from his nose, Algae rose up still carrying the grin that had caused him to get hit. "Not only does it make them fat, but it makes them starving, all from a single dose! Imagine what could be done if we could make them susceptible to multiple doses? Or made it spreadable by skin contact? Hell, with a few modifications on the genetic level we could even make it bond to Metagenes..."
"I thought binding something to Metagenes was a dangerous affair?"
"Not when it makes you fat! Just give me some time in order to perfect this combination and you'll have the perfect drug for weakening and bending everyone to your will!"
"I'm not a chubby chaser... but I can at least get behind weakening those heroes trying to stop me." As she calmed down, Moss finally started to actually think about the prospects. She didn't really enjoy this idea, but there was genuine prospect in immobilizing opponents under their own adipose. If this effect could also weaken their own Metagenes as well, perhaps it'd be great for finally neutralizing the Power Lounge, her own personal enemies once and for all? Well, most of them at least, as she doubted it'd work on that damn Amaterasu, who could just use magic to will herself thin.
Regardless, so long as she didn't get infected herself and get absolutely massive, she was okay with this.
"...Fine. If you want to mess with this formula go right ahead. But I'll still be messing with other possibilities so if I find something better your idea's getting trashed."
"Good, Ms. Moss! I'll get start working on it right away!"
___
While the next day saw Moss once again getting her ass handed to her on a silver platter, at the very least the month ahead saw great progress on Algae's project. While they had started as infectious spores, the doctor managed to develop a way to compress them into a liquid agent, dyed blue in order to prevent the vials from being mixed up with any of their other bioweapons. In spite of their new form however, the liquid agent did everything that Algae had asked for and more.
For starters, only a single drop was needed to achieve results, meaning a single vial could be used to infect many if one were to spill it into a water supply, or an entire vial could be used to infect someone many times over. Since the vials were about the size of a long beer can, they could just as easily load it into a dart gun as they could blow it up or force someone to drink it all, and they'd have enough for at least 50 darts before the vial emptied.
In addition, Algae's claims that it could bind itself to Metagenes had also come entirely true. Through extensive modifications, he had found a way for the serum to bind the newly created fat cells with a person's metagenes, diluting them and causing them to weaken. It wasn't capable of deleting Metapowers, but it could at least bring someone with super strength back down to human levels of power.
This testing did cost Moss some good goons though. At least a dozen of her underlings were now immobile and useless, while hundreds more were nearly 500 pounds and struggling to keep in shape under her demands. She and Cider thankfully were unaffected, but the army she had amassed were now a bunch of blubbery dough balls pretending to be actually intimidating rather than the terrifying force of gardening-themed mooks that she had all hired.
This cost was however worth it, as soon as she heard the news from Algae.
"Miss Moss... AdipoMetaToxin is a big success. We have successfully used it on the field for the first time, against both Gattaca and one of our rival gangs in Chicago. Both Gattaca, as well as the villainess Arachnophobia... have been rendered completely immobile."
"...Holy shit. Wait, AdipoMetaToxin? That's a horrible name."
"I'm a scientist, not a marketing agent." Algae remarked. "I'm sure that you'll come up with a better name soon enough."
"Well regardless, are you sure they've been immobilized?"
"Take a look."
Holding out a phone for his boss, Algae pulled out a video on YouTube taken on the streets by someone named AccardiCore. It started with the blond haired woman filming the video simply rating Italian food before getting interrupted by a huge crash into the pavement. As the dust settled, everyone was shocked as they saw a big pink blob that was Gattaca, with pudge going out in every direction.
And as soon as a random civilian touched Gattaca to check if she was fine, he bloated up as well. Not as immensely as Gattaca was due to how massive of a dose she took, but still he blew out of his clothing, leaving him entirely exposed as he slowly lumbered for food. The video ended there, but it was clear that this was the result of an entire month's work of effort.
"Would you like to see the other video showcasing what happened to Arachnophobia?"
"No, I get the picture." Rising up from her seat, Moss understood perfectly well what she had just released. This was a Pandora's Box of weirdness, and as soon as this blew up other criminals were going to try to copy it, and heroes were going to have to find ways to counter and reverse it. It was going to be an arms race revolved around this chemical weapon...
...And it was all her fault. But also, if she just did nothing she was going to be victim to it herself.
"So... what do you think?"
"Algae... you better have more vials, or we're screwed."
View Portfolio
Visit Notebook
Send Gift Points
Awards
Badges
Send Email
Community Newsfeed
General Discussion
Sponsored Items
Book of Trinkets
Static Items
Books
Groups
Interactive Stories
Audio
Campfire Creatives
Community Notes
Crossword Puzzles
Documents
Folders
Images
In & Outs
Madlibs
Photo Albums
Polls
Product Reviews
Quizzes
Survey Forms
Web Pages
Word Searches
More by this author
